Our last year's holiday was a combination between Austria and Romania. Moreover, we took advantage of the fact that we had two long stopovers in Istanbul, about 8 hours both on departure and on return (we flew with Turkish Airlines), and we visited this city as well.

The trip report for the first stopover in Istanbul is here (Seven hours in Istanbul)

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34749469

The trip report for the 7 days we spent in Austria is here (Swaying on the Rhythm of the Danube)

http://fodors.com/forums/threadselec...p;tid=34857818

The following is a trip report of 7 days that we spent in Romania.

We had Romania as a base for our holiday, and while visiting family and friends, we went to some beautiful, interesting or historical places around.

Therefore, I put together our activities and destinations that we did outside our social visits. This amounted to 7 days of pure tourism, and here is the report.

Our itinerary included Maramures (pronounce Maramuresh), Bucharest, Danube Delta and the medieval towns of Sighisoara, Sibiu and Brasov.

I have selected some photos, scanned them (they are not digital, so their quality may suffer a bit) and placed them online as follows:

For Maramures, the first area we visited, the photos are here

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...1AaNGzly4ZsXdg

For other parts of Romania, the photos are here

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/w...1AaNGzly4ZsXVA

To be continued...

Day 1 – Maramures

Maramures is a remote area of Romania, up north at the border with Ukraine. We left from Bucharest with the night train to Baia Mare, the capital of Maramures county, for a two-day trip.

We had arranged for a car to rent and as agreed, the agent was there at 05.30 early morning, when our train arrived.

By the way! The agent we chose was Nord-Nord Vest, who was very helpful in both planning an itinerary and renting the car. They also offer guided trips all around the place.

Their web site is here

http://www.nnv.ro/inside/aboutNNV_eng.php

We took the car and within minutes, we were on our way to the countryside.
Unfortunately, the roads were very bad, inside and outside the towns.

Bumps and pot holes, crests and troughs were all over and even if I kept the speed very low, at 40kph, I finally hit one of them.

The tank was punched from the impact and with hardly 20 minutes into our trip, we already had a problem. The petrol was dripping at a low and not very worrying rate, so we decided to continue our trip, even though we were aware that our expenses for fuel would increase a lot.

When the car was not moving, there was no leakage, however each time I put a brake the petrol would gush-out.

Maramures is one of the few places left in Romania where traditions and customs of hundreds of years still exist. Its inhabitants are mostly peasants living in small villages throughout the valleys, still abiding by the same traditions as did their ancestors of hundreds of years ago.

The region is famous for its wooden churches with their high shingled steeples that seem to point toward the heavens, the elaborately carved gates, its colorful peasant costumes of red, white and black, and hand-dyed and woven rugs.

The nature is beautiful here, with low mountains, green hills and long river valleys.

Our first stop, other than for that unfortunate accident, was at Negresti-Oas. This is a small town with an intense traditional atmosphere.

The wonders of the modern world have not spoiled much of the charm of this place, where the scent of the old countryside still lingers.

We visited the Heritage Village, with wooden houses from the Oas region, and the traditional (for this part of Romania) wooden church, all set in a beautiful landscape on the hills.

We left Negresti-Oas and headed towards Bixad.
We visited the old monastery there, perched on a hill outside the village.

We parked the car and started to walk and look around. One monk came toward us and he opened the door inviting us inside.

The monastery is over 300 years old and it had recently been renovated.
We liked the decorations, made of carved wood.

We spent some time there, sat on the grass and admired the nature around us. It was a beautiful green countryside, hills rolling all around and we felt great.

To be continued...

We were then on a winding road up and down through the hills and valleys, where most of the time there was no one else for miles around.

We kept looking out on the window to admire the nature and we had to stop several times to absorb it: forests covering the hills all around us, a few houses in a valley at a distance, a group of haystacks on the side of a hill, birds chirruping merrily.

The road narrowed as we started to descend a hill and took us winding in hairpins through thick woods

We wanted to drive very slowly there, to take in as much of that nature as possible, but unfortunately a 16-wheeler was right behind us forcing me to keep on driving.

We reached Sapantsa, a village right up North, close to the border with Ukraine. Thick and fluffy, home-made woolen carpets made by the locals for sale, were hanging on the fences in front of some houses.

We went to visit the colourful Merry Cemetery, called so because of the humorous rhymed epitaphs inscribed on lively decorated wooden crosses, with painted images showing the deceased in their trades.

Unique in the world, the Merry Cemetery of Sapantsa is an original folkloric art museum, founded in 1935 by a sculptor named Ioan Stan Patras.

The simple-rhyming stanzas are sometimes lyrical, sometimes ironic, but always sincere and never indulgent.

We wandered among the vivid coloured crosses, took lots of photos and noted some of the epitaphs. I've tried here to translate two of them, to give you an idea.

However, in Romanian it rhymes nicely, but in English is difficult to find the rhyme.

“Here lies my mother-in-law.
Had she lived another year,
I would have lied here."


“Burn in Hell damned taxi, you,
That came from far away Sibiu!
As large as Romania is
Couldn't you find another road with ease,
But in front of my house to kill me?"


From there, we went to visit the nearby Sapanta-Peri monastery. We drove on a narrow road that took us through some woods till we reached a clearing.

The wooden monastery was there, jutting up above the forest canopy. With a 75m high steeple, this is the tallest wooden church in the world.

We spent some time there and relaxed walking around, taking deep breaths of the fresh forest air.

To be continued...

I want to go to Maramures! Reading your trip report with GREAT interest!

Yes, Schuler, go!

It's so beautiful there and people are very nice.

Our next stop was Sighetu Marmatiei, the northernmost town in Romania, barely a mile from the Ukrainian border.

We visited the Ethnographic Museum, where we saw examples of local handicraft, including handmade rugs, woodcarving, icons painted on glass, costumes, masks and household objects.

It was interesting to see exhibits depicting traditions and customs in the region, many of them still existing today.

We went for a walk in the charming old center around Liberty Square with shops, restaurants and the 18th century Prefecture, now the State Archives.

We stopped at a coffee shop for some refreshments. We took a table out on the terrace and looked around us.

Not many people on the streets, only a few in the coffee shop, rarely a car was passing by... This was a quiet town.

We continued our journey and visited a fabulous Village Museum, just outside the town on a hill, overlooking the valley.

We walked on a path cutting through a small forest. This museum exhibits wooden houses from the Maramures County with old rural architecture.

Big wood gates with canopy, typical for this region, make the entrance in the courtyard or garden of every house.

All the woodwork of the fences, gates, doors and window frames, is carved, each house with different patterns.

We continued our journey through the hills and valleys, passing through small villages where daily life has not changed for centuries.

We encountered many horse drawn carts piled high with hay, and in a few instances they moved on the main road between villages and towns.

Approaching from behind, we could see only a big, fat, round stack of hay, so big they were.

We reached Barsana, where a very old and beautiful monastery, built in 1390, is located on a hilltop.

We parked down in the valley and climbed the hill. The views were superb, with greenery everywhere and hills all around us.

Before we continued our way, we tried our balance walking on a rope bridge, across a river by the monastery.

It was quite windy and the bridge shaky, but the experience was nice and fun.

To be continued...

Later in the evening we reached Botiza and stopped there for the night. We found a room at a Bed & Breakfast in the village.

The hosts were very friendly and immediately offered us a home-made palinca to drink. Palinca is a very strong drink, prepared locally from various fruits.

It is very similar in taste to schnapps, for those who know. Once our glasses were empty, someone would be right there to refill them.

Then they just told us to refill our shots ourselves. Several families were there, some were neighbours and others were tourists, and we had dinner all of us together in the garden.

The hosts were already getting ready to prepare some steaks and other meat dishes, ready to prepare a feast, as the drinks were already flowing almost freely.

Beer? Palinca?
The glasses were ready to be filled in, just say what you wish.

No, there was no getting drunk there, just being merry and talkative. Everyone had a good time.

The smell of the pieces of meat being rolled over a barbeque or the steak getting ready to be served was tingling our nostrils.

"We are vegetarians..." Such a disappointment! I felt sorry for the hosts, who were getting ready for a big party.

But it was all right of course, it's just that there are not many vegetarians in that part of the world.

They prepared something separate for us, no problem with that. They kept asking what else would we need, what else would we want to eat.

Had that been enough, did we want anything more? We had a few shots of palinca before the meal and then some beer to quench our thirst.

Then they asked us if we wanted some more palinca before we went to bed. There was so much happiness there, party mood all around.

All the guests sitting together around a big table in the garden, and then later simply wandering around the garden, loosely, freely, with a glass in hand, talking, enjoying the air and the peace of the area.

It was late at night, around 2 o’clock, when we went to bed...

To be continued...

Day 2

On Sundays, everyone promenades along the streets. A very religious people, the women wear black flowered headscarves, the traditional black skirts and colored sweaters; the local men wear hats, styles varying from village to village, and sport sheepskin vests.

Their fancy folk costumes of white blouses, red and black striped aprons and multicoloured vests are saved for festivals.

In Romania people in the countryside don't dress with traditional costumes specially for tourists. It is their habit, they do it for themselves, they go to church like that and they pride themselves with those costumes and they pass the tradition from mother to daughter, from father to son.

It is not like when a tourist company orders a group of people to dress like that for a couple of hours, because some tourists have come and paid big money to see tradition.

No, it is normal life. Indeed, this custom is now no longer widespread, but there are still many areas where it is the local norm.

We were in such an area that day, in the deep countryside of Maramures.
Next day was a Sunday and it so happened that it was a big local religious holiday, All Saints Day, celebrated at the local church.

Now was the time when the villagers wear the traditional costumes, and we were there to witness a big local celebration.

We were having our breakfast when our hosts called us out to see the people coming dressed in their fancy outfits.

They kept pouring down the street, coming not only from Botiza where we were, but also from neighbouring villages, a colourful spectacle on a bright Sunday morning.

They all congregated for the religious service at the church on the hill. It was full of traditionally dressed people, maybe a couple of thousand spread on the slope of the hill, by the church.

We took our camera and spare films and went along. People were just happy, even though shy, to pose for us.

It was an incredible and very enjoyable experience. We had never seen before such a spectacular gathering of people almost all dressed in beautiful, colourful traditional costumes.

There was a sense of curiosity on both sides. Whenever we asked people to pose for a picture, they would do it happily, looking at us shyly, with a smile on their face.

They were asking themselves maybe, what was it that made us take their picture? What in that place is something normal, for us is like a special show.

I wished I had an automatic continuous shooting option on my camera, to just leave it take pictures at will, as I went around. That gathering of people was so beautiful and spectacular.

To be continued...

Yes, please, Gabrieltraian, you are inspiring me to visit an area that I might not otherwise have considered. You have a knack for capturing a moment.

An inspiring trip report.

It reminds me of how Switzerland may have once been, many years ago, and still can be during their local festivals.

LJ and Schuler, thank you for your appreciation.

Yes, it's a pity that traditions in their pure form fade away and take a touristy approach.

By noon, we left Botiza village and continued south among views of forests, meadows and haystacks neatly arranged on the fields alongside the road, till we reached Bogdan Voda village.

We visited the wooden church, which dates from 1722. Next to it there is now a new church built.

At the back side of the wooden church there was a long bench. Sitting on and around it, were maybe 20 elderly women reading from a bible and praying together.

Our next stop was the village of Ieud, home of the most famous wooden churches in the valley. On the village main street we saw people gathered on the bench at the gates, in front of their houses.

They were all dressed neatly, as it was a Sunday. Passing by one of those gates, we saw a group of six women sitting on the bench in the shade of the big wooden gate with canopy.

I stopped the car a few metres away and came back to them. I asked if I could take a picture of themselves sitting like that under the gate.

They agreed, I took a beautiful photo, then they asked if I could send them one. I took the address of one of the ladies and after a few days, when we were in Bucharest, I printed six photos, one for each of those ladies, and posted them.

I thought that they would be happy if each had their own picture.

We went to the Church on the Hill, which dates from 1364 and contains 15th and 16th century paintings on its walls. Then we went to the other wooden church, at the foot of the hill, called the Church in the Valley, which was built in 1718.

In this village is the only water mill in working state in the whole region. The mill is owned and inhabited by a family.

When we arrived there, a little girl was in the courtyard. We spoke to her and asked if we could visit the mill.

She graciously let us in and showed us various pieces of equipment. Somewhere next to a wall there were kept several beautiful wool blankets in various colours, made by her mother.

When we returned to the main street in the village, we saw a man sitting alone on a bench. He was dressed in a traditional costume, white shirt, white trousers, a straw hat, peasant waist belt and peasant shoes (with leather laces and slightly bent at the toes – what would the English equivalent be?), and he agreed to pose for a photo.

We were on our way to Baia Mare, the county’s capital, and passing through various villages we saw herds of cattle on the streets. They were returning home from their pastures on a Sunday evening, walking slowly on the main streets, oblivious to the cars trying to make their way forward.

We enjoyed more beautiful scenery, driving on winding lonely roads, through hills and forests, with birds happily making their presence felt somewhere in the thick of the woods.

In Baia Mare we delivered the car back to the agency and explained about the puncture in the tank. As we couldn’t fill up the tank from obvious reasons, we agreed with the agent to pay for the equivalent amount of petrol to fill it up.

We started to feel hungry and went on hunting for a place to eat. We scanned the streets going in a few directions from the station and picked one which looked more commercial.

After a few minutes we found a place from where we bought a large pizza and a beer for each of us. When the pizzas were ready, there was no time left to stay and eat there, as our night train to Bucharest was due to depart in a few minutes.

We ran with the pizzas and beers in our hands and made it to the station in time. Once the train was in motion, we started our feast with pizza and beer in our own two-bed compartment.

We enjoyed very much this trip, made lots of photos and now have happy memories of the places we saw, the people we met and the time we spent there.

To be continued...

Day 3 – Bucharest

We arrived in Bucharest in the morning and we carried on with our plans for the day.

First, we visited the National History Museum. Unfortunately it was under renovation and only a part was open for visitors.

We could see the Roman ruins, costumes and furniture from the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, stamps, etc.

The highlight of the collections is The National Treasury. Here is displayed the biggest Romanian ancient treasure, which we were thrilled to see and admire.

Discovered in 1837, initially it weighed 40 kilos, but part of it was stolen, part was lost, so now only about 20 kilos are left of it.

The treasure, as it is now, consists of 12 gold objects and dates back to the 4th century B.C.

From there we went for a walk on Victoria Way and some side streets coming from it, all nice parts of the city, with French-inspired architecture from the 18th, 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, that caused Bucharest to be called Little Paris.

Although the city has lost most of its grandeur, if you look well enough it is still possible to find proof of the past glory. We found it during our walk, as there still are many buildings that do remind of Paris.

We walked on narrow streets in the city centre, with few cars and small shops, admiring buildings with sculptures, with a particular roof with dormer windows, with decorated window panes.

We liked the walk in this area of the Romanian capital, where we could still feel the nice atmosphere of a great past.

To be continued...

Day 4

Next day, we went to visit Mogosoaia Palace, located 10km outside Bucharest, in a park on the shore of Mogosoaia Lake.

It was built between 1698 – 1702 by Constantin Brancoveanu, a famous Romanian Ruler. The Palace is an architectural monument, having the façade dominated by traditional staircase balconies, and by the arcades and columns with caps.

Inside the rooms were old decorations, beautifully woven carpets, skillfully crafted woodwork, paintings, all from the 17th – 19th centuries.

After the visit inside the palace we walked for a while in the gardens on the shore of the lake, strolled through the alleys in the park and then returned to Bucharest.

That day an exhibition was opened at the National Art Museum, called Lights and Shadows, with works by the French Impressionists.

We went to see the exhibition and also to visit the regular collections of the museum, consisting of Romanian medieval art, modern art, European painting and sculpture, European decorative art, oriental art, prints and drawings and contemporary art.

Among the works existing there, we could see a good collection of Dutch and Flemish Grand Masters as well.

From the museum we went for a walk in some other old areas in and around the city centre, including Cismigiu Park, one of the oldest and most beautiful parks in Bucharest.

In the evening we went to see a theatre play, Henry IV by Luigi Pirandello.

We enjoyed the performance very much, especially that we had the chance to see one of the best and most famous Romanian actors today, Marcel Iures, who played in various Hollywood movies along with Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible), Bruce Willis and Colin Farrell (Hart’s War – as the German Colonel), etc.

To be continued...

Day 5 – The Danube Delta

In the morning we left for Tulcea, where the Danube Delta begins. Tulcea is a quiet town, not much happens on its streets.

It doesn't have an old town to wander through and admire the old architecture. Everyone there seems to go on the promenade by the Danube banks.

Many ships are there, some waiting to go on a cruise, some carrying stuff, commercial ships, some waiting to go fishing. Seen from this promenade, the Danube is not spectacular at all, and there's no sign of the magnificent delta.

In the distance you can see a forest straddled on each side of the Danube, as you enter the delta, but nothing prepares you for what you are going to see inside.

The Danube Delta is a UNESCO Natural World Heritage Site. The waters of the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea, form the largest and best preserved of Europe's deltas.

The Danube Delta is a haven for bird-watchers; willow, ash and white poplar trees provide nesting sites for more than 300 species of birds over the course of a year. The cormorants form 60% of the total population existing in the world, the largest in Europe.

We had booked a private trip in the delta and we were looking forward to it. We boarded a small motor boat and sailed away.

After a few minutes we reached the forest that we could see from the promenade. We turned left on a narrow channel cutting the forest.

We didn't even realize when we were already deep into the wilderness of nature.

Our boat took us on reed-fringed canals widening into tree-fringed lakes with crystal-clear water and a network of islands, covered in swaying reeds, blanketed by water lilies and other floating vegetation.

The boatman was careful not to disturb the sometimes deafening silence, broken only by the birds chirruping and the low monotonous sound of our boat cutting through the smooth, crystal water.

Two times our attention was drawn by flights of birds in their well-known V-formation above us and it was a spectacular sight.

During our trip, we saw herons, storks, egrets, wild ducks, swans, cormorants and pelicans.

Sometimes we were on wide open waters, water lilies all around us, then we were again in the thick woods, birds flying away occasionally from a thick bush, when unknowingly, we got too close to them.

A few times a trunk of a fallen tree was blocking our way and the boatman was skillful enough to manoeuvre the boat, pushing up against the trunk with a row that he had, lifting the boat over the trunk.

We liked it so much when we saw the pelicans lifting themselves up in the air from close range. They were so heavy, like some B-52s trying hard to lift up, their bodies overweight with fish.

Elegant swans were here and there in pairs, in corners of water under the trees, like lovers in a spot away from the curious world.

Even though it lasted only a few hours, it was a very enjoyable excursion and we loved it.

To be continued...

I am enjoying your trip very much; thanks for writing the trip report. We will be visiting Maramures, but unfortunately not on a Sunday. You were so fortunate to be there on a special holiday. We will also be in the old cities of Transylvania, so I am looking forward to reading about Sighisoara, Sibiu and Brasov.

Your pictures are beautiful. The Danube Delta seems so pristing and interesting - maybe on my next trip!

Noe847, I'm so glad you're enjoying my trip report and that you liked the photos!

Even though you won't be in Maramures on a Sunday, I think it's no harm in checking with the NNV agency (see the link above), to find out whether there is any religious holiday during the week you are there.

Such holidays do not necessarily happen on a Sunday. Ask them if they know of any such holiday, what date and where to go to see people in traditional costumes. They are from there and they should know better.

Sighisoara, Sibiu and Brasov are coming up in a few minutes.

At this part of the trip we left for Austria for a 7 days holiday there. The link to that trip report is above, at the beginning of the report.

From Austria we returned to Romania and this is the continuation.

On our way to Romania returning from Austria, the road through Hungary was really boring, endless fields on both sides. Only when we reached Lake Balaton the scenery changed a little, but not for long.

When we reached the Romanian border there was a huge queue, long lines of vehicles waiting for their turn. We spent about two hours moving at a snail pace before we got clearance to pass.

We were now on the Romanian international roads, horse pulled hay carts, big trucks, crazy drivers overtaking dangerously while vehicles were coming from the front.

We passed by the Deva and Rupea fortresses, both still guarding their towns from the top of the hills, as they have been doing for centuries now.

In many villages along the way we saw stork nests on the top of telegraph posts, and storks standing on them. In the evening we reached Brasov, former capital of Transylvania, our base for the next few days.

To be continued...

Hi gabriel,

Thank you for posting such a detailed report. Reading it makes one feel like they are along with you in the backseat! Looking forward to more

TexasAggie,

Thank you for your nice remarks!

I'm so glad you like my writing.